A/N:

I'm sorry this is so late; I had an awful case of writer's block over the past three weeks, a ton of schoolwork and lots of family outings. Thankfully, my good friend Charlotte produced a writing prompt exercise for me to stretch my fingers to. Thank you Charlotte! I might even post it.

Thank you to writeforeverforlife for reviewing (I am sorry I have already confused you but I hope this chapter kind of clears things up. Thanks for attempting to stick with it though; I really appreciate it!).

Thank you to everyone who favourite'd and/or follows this story!

This chapter is heavily influenced by the Series 5 Episode 'Amy's Choice'. (Do you kind of see where I'm going now writeforeverforlife?)

DISCLAIMER: The BBC owns 'Doctor Who', its dialogues, plot-lines and character names. All other plot-lines, characterizations, and details belong to the author: xForbiddenLoveBitesx

Happy reading…

The Doctor's head spins his vision blurry as he wakes to the sweltering heat of his prison and tries to become accustomed – yet again – to the dim light of the room. He blinks twice, the feeling of unshed tears leaving them dry and angry.

The Doctor cranes his neck, stretching the taut muscles there and trying to see the expanse of his body, assessing the situation. Right, he thinks rationally, first he has to rid himself of these restraints. He wiggles his left arm, worming it up to his chest, ignoring the stabbing pains traveling up the length of it and lays his arm flat on the surface of his chest. He then reaches, slowly so as not to hurt his arm further, into the inside right pocket of his suit jacket. He fumbles around for a minute, lost in its depths, before his fingers clasp around a hard tube, the metal encasing it cool in the humidity of the room. He draws out his Sonic Screwdriver with dexterity, placing it on his chest in order to give his tiring arms a break.

After a few double heartbeats of rest, the Doctor sets back to work, picking up the screwdriver placed on his chest and rising it as far upwards as the restraints allow. He aims the instrument to his right, at the start of the first strip of fabric, and finds the right setting. The tip of the instrument lights up a brilliant blue, flooding the dim room in an artificial glow. The Doctor hears the fabric tear with a satisfying rip and his chest rises and falls more deeply, no longer restricted, free to breathe. He sets to work on the other ten, his muscles aching to move as they break free of their prisons, his arm becoming increasingly heavy, exhausted by the exertion needed for the task. His eyes began to feel the same, drooping ever so slightly as he finished ridding himself of the last obstruction. This, he thinks, is highly irregular for him. He rarely gets tired, not with his Time Lord genes and, when he does, he never needs to sleep for that long before his body feels completely energized and will need no more sleep for at least a week. So why does he feel so exhausted now?

He sits up, despite the pounding of his head and the drooping of his eyelids, and deposits the screwdriver once more into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He swings his legs around the meet the edge of the bed, and places his feet on the ground. With one sound movement, he pushes himself off the bed and rocks on the balls of his feet, gaining his balance.

He stays that way for a few minutes – two minutes, forty-two seconds and thirteen nanoseconds to be precise – and surveys his surroundings properly, now that he can see them fully. After failing to see much due to the darkness of the room, the Doctor gets out his Sonic Screwdriver again and turns the setting so it will glow even brighter. The Doctor, once he is able to see the expanse of the room, drags in a deep breath, curiosity and fear mingling.

He walks, with unsteady legs, to one of the four walls, crouching down to inspect the substance smeared over every available surface. Putting his glasses on with his free hand, the dread sets slowly as he confirms his suspicions on the substance.

It is small when individual, tiny like a grain of rice, and is iridescent, the way at which you look at it changing the colour you perceive it as. Thousands of them covered the walls; thousands of specks of psychic pollen stolen from the Candle Meadows of Karass don Slava. The heat in the room... The Doctor's mind is working at 100mph, trying to piece together the evidence like pieces of a puzzle. The heat, teamed with the pollen would create...

A dream-state.

It had all been a dream.

Losing Rose, the Daleks getting sucked into the Void; it was all a figment of his imagination. The psychic pollen, a mind parasite, feeds on everything dark within you. The darkest things in the Doctor were his age-old enemy, appearing again and again through his timeline, cropping up like a bad penny, destroying everything in their path and the other, the thought of losing his current companion. It was something he knew would be inevitable, like the rising of the sun, but still he tries to deny it, still he tries to cling to happiness, to the bubble of joy that Rose emanates.

The Doctor, with a heart no longer heavy but brimming with hope, straightens up from his crouched position, screwdriver in hand. Before he had even made a move to walk to the door of the room, he was almost crouched again, a deep gut-wrenching feeling tearing up his insides as he doubles over. No sooner had it come, before it left and the Doctor was left questioning his own sanity as he returned to normal. With a shake of his head, he makes his way to the door, screwdriver lighting the way. The door, surprisingly, isn't locked and turns easily within his grasp.

He swings the door open.

Almost immediately, he is shutting the door, gasping for breath in the room. The sight he was met with on opening the door was what he normally saw from the comfort of the Console room in the TARDIS, displayed on a screen. What he saw was the depths of space, a solitary star far out in the distance, a burning sun a million light years away.

He stays that way, staring at the door and does the only thing he can think to do in this moment: call for help. He reaches with his mind, searching past stars and planets, suns and moons, for his only rescue, his only home now. He finds, to his fear and anger, that the connection is clouded, much like his memories were and he only has a vague impression of Her in his mind.

The Doctor is alone, with no way of being rescued, and has no way of finding Rose...

A/N:

So there you have chapter four; a little on the short side again.

Now, there are probably a lot of things that are wrong with this chapter. 1) I'm not sure if Time Lords need that much sleep, or if, after sleeping, they have enough energy to last them a week so that is probably wrong. 2) The Tenth Doctor has probably never seen the Candle Meadows on Karass don Slava, but let's say, for my story's sake, that he has. So, if you can't live with those mistakes I'm sorry, but if I don't have them it kind of ruins the whole story.

I'm not entirely sure, apart from the fact that the three of you that have reviewed are confused, how this story is going. I would really appreciate, if anyone reviews, if you could put in a review what I'm doing right or wrong.